Today, the Hamilton Pulse-Journalreports that school districts in Warren County, the heart of GOP country, is protesting the DAS analysis as grossly overstating their potential savings as well:

The Ohio Department of Administrative Services report indicates the eight districts and the career center can reduce costs by an estimated $15.9 million, based on the elimination of salary schedules and employees paying 15 percent of their health insurance premiums.

…

Mason schools’ savings under SB 5, estimated to be $4.5 million by the state, are actually closer to $1.8 million, according to rough estimates by the district.

I guess when you’ve already been off nearly 800%, being off 250% is like hitting the bulls eye, am I right?

Teachers and other employees at the Warren County Career Center and Kings schools already pay 15 percent of their health insurance premiums.

“While the district feels there will be a savings, to use an average that is not defined is not a clear indication and we can’t solidify this number,” said WCCC Treasurer Karen Royer, referring to the estimated $431,000 in savings.

Lebanon and Waynesville schools pay 20 percent or more of their health insurance premiums, a higher share than what SB 5 requires.

“The analysis significantly overstates any potential savings to Lebanon City Schools,” said Eric Sotzing, treasurer at Lebanon schools, savings for which were estimated at more than $2 million. “The analysis also fails to take into account the costs associated with implementing a performance-based compensation plan and differences in existing salary schedules.”

Wayne Local Treasurer Ron James said there is not enough information available to determine any potential savings.

“I do know that our funding is going down and there are no computations available to support anything from the recent legislation that would save Wayne Local Schools $532,154,” James said.

And this gets to the one-two political punch the Kasich Administration is attempting to do with this sham of analysis. They’re trying to make SB 5 more popular by making the present system of collective bargaining appear horrible by trumping up a number to suggest it costs our schools nearly a $1 billion a year (when it doesn’t). Second, the Administration is motivated to exaggerate the “savings” of SB 5 in order to make the cuts in education Kasich’s budget look more tolerable by inflating beyond all credibility how much SB 5 will offset those cuts.

In other words, the DAS’s analysis is one tube of lipstick for two pigs.

And let’s not gloss over that this isn’t the teachers unions calling these numbers b.s., it’s the management of the school districts! If anyone had a bias to suggest SB 5 would saving school districts money, it’s them. After all SB 5 is intended, according to Kasich, to benefit these folks. And I’d bet the farm that every one of these guys support SB 5, too. But they can’t just sit on the sidelines and watch this Administration go around the State of Ohio claiming that this bill is going to save over $800 million a year for local schools when they’re own review of the “analysis” shows the real number is a pittance compared to what is being pushed by Kasich.

And what’s the Administration’s response to these school districts saying their “analysis” is deeply flawed?

DAS spokesman Dan Kaman said his office wasn’t able to examine each of the state’s 719 school districts separately, but wanted to produce something “so that local school districts and local school boards know what kind of savings they have.” (Source: Springfield Sun 4/21/11)

Translation: In our defense of our district by district breakdown of SB 5 savings, we didn’t actually look at any data from these districts. Nonetheless, we just wanted to produce something so that the school districts know what kind of savings they have, even if that number is pretty much totally made up.

You’ve got school districts managers in the heart of GOP country up in arms over the Administration’s attempt to swindle people into thinking SB 5 is going to save them millions of dollars that will never occur. This as many of these districts are potentially planning to go to voters to seek levies to provide the funding for essential school services that the Kasich budget does not provide.

This “analysis” is so fundamentally flawed no media outlet in Ohio should even report on it, even if they just qualify their reporting as a “Kasich Administration claim.” The DAS document is nothing more than highly misleading, outright false political propaganda that if reported on will mislead and misinform voters as to the reality of SB 5. That any savings it generates is remarkable small compared to the economic harm it imposes on working and middle class families in Ohio.

I predict under my analysis of SB5 that all Ohio school districts will loose an average of 35.4% of their tax base and will gain –36.85% in new revenues… oh, wait, is it possible to have a negative gain? Oh, well, it doesn’t matter because I just made those figures up to show school districts what they could expect. I didn’t really research it, so you know it is as accurate as DAS.

Kasich is quick on the trigger but slow on the draw. It must suck to be him.

Beca117

Dayton Daily News had an article last week quoting the treasurer of DaytonPublic Schools that their projects savings would be $8.8 million, but, in reality, it looked closer to $2 million…..Another off by more than 400%

The government sure seems to be in the hands of amateurs. It is becoming more clear that Kasich has never really been involved in true business nor run a large organization. Or that the GOP is being lead by people very out of touch with working Ohioans – including public employees.

SB5 is bad legislation – period. It was rushed through with little stakeholder input and consideration. There’s no buy-in from the public workers – just the jack boot of the GOP on their throats. A true leader would find a way to balance the budget with collaboration and a positive plan to build Ohio. SB5 will have major negative unintended consequences.

Even the statement from Kasich that he’s open to ideas from teachers on merit pay via eMail is almost comical if it wasn’t so sad. Merit pay is a complicated issue that rarely works well even in the private sector, and then is it found mostly in sales. Again, it can have major unintended consequences. Most studies, the Vanderbilt one the most recent, have shown teacher merit pay to be difficult to implement and usually ineffective or, worse, destructive. Better to work on this idea with the input from the teachers in the trenches and actually listen to the veteran educators rather than wing it with trial and error.

Epic fail is right.

Fotogirlcb2002

DAS — thats where the letter came from about how great sb5 is
where Bob Blair works — that says a lot to me about how much they know

stryx

but wanted to produce something “so that local school districts and local school boards know what kind of savings they have.”

When asked for comment about the apparent difference between the Kasich budget claims and actual reality, an administration spokesman stated that Kasich’s numbers “were not meant to be a factual statement.”